When I came to, my cartoon starfish was gyrating in the corner, by the door. The walls and ceiling around me were torn apart and coated in sticky blood. Bits of metal lay all over the floor, and on my still-destroyed body.

“Sorry user, no more charge! Break something, break something!” It said, dancing furiously. The lower my charge got, the more irritating my suit’s communications method became.

I tried to roll and couldn’t. My arms worked, but my legs and hips did not. My body worked from the waist up, and not at all below that. I propped myself up on my elbows and took stock.

The room was destroyed. Several appendages had emerged from the wall at my side in an attempt to follow Rova’s order and kill me. The mechanical arms were shredded, torn apart into little bits, and scattered around the room. My suit’s tendrils had been busy, but so had the killer holding cell.

My legs were torn meat. Deep lacerations oozed slow moving blood, and bone was visible through several of the worst tears. My torso was similarly ruined, major wounds spread out all over it. The room and my suit had a fight, with me as the tug-of-war rope between the two. A slippery pink coil of intestine poking from my side let me know I had even been eviscerated. Again.

I raised both arms in concern, but they were mostly intact, in spite of the restraints having been pried open. A few gashes and lacerations graced my forearms and hands, but I could feel my crystal colonies were primarily intact.

“Break something user! Hurry and break something!” the cartoon insisted. This time it was wearing oversized shining metal gauntlets over its upper appendages, and shadow boxing. “Summon your breakers and break something!”

I ignored it and focused on suppressing the residual pain.

“How long did that take?” I croaked.

A few seconds of silence passed before Garthrust said, “See? Relic.”

Rova nodded, slowly, still staring at the cell. She took a shaking breath and released it before shrugging. “I’ll inform the Wizard. He’ll want to see this, get your prisoner.”

“What? No!” Garthrust exclaimed. “I already brought you in. There is no need to inform the Wizard! We will extract his mortblock and give that to the Wizard, but this treasure is for us!”

Rova shook her head, the shining tips of her horns catching the light. “You must be even less intelligent than I thought, Garthrust. The Wizard is the primary mortblock holder, you think you can slip a relic out from beneath his nose? A relic that originated on his property?”

“Technically,” I said, raising one hand weakly and extending its finger. “The relic originated on my property. I still own the mortblock.” I laughed weakly and coughed, tasting blood. “And you’ll never find it.”

Rova hissed and her tail came up again, the bone barb at the end waggling. “Your land is a fly-speck, human. We will take it when it becomes convenient to do so, mortblock or not.”

She produced a flat plastic item from her pocket and raised it to the side of her head as she turned to leave. The Nah’gh woman slithered to the back of the room and pressed her thumb to a section of the wall there. It slid open, revealing a comfortable looking elevator.

Rova slipped into the elevator and turned to wait for the doors to close. As they were sliding closed, she said, “wake the Wizard, the relic is real and in our possession. He’ll want to see it.”

The doors closed with a light metallic ping.

“Who’s the Wizard?” I croaked to Garthrust.

“The last human face you’ll ever see, Nu-Earthling,” he replied idly, fiddling with his console. When he was finished with it, he placed his own phone at the bottom and held it there for a few seconds. As soon as he pocketed the device, his metal jaw twisted into a smile, and he approached my cell.

Garthrust was not a gentle captor, which he displayed by grabbing the back of my neck and hauling me out of the cell’s bed. My legs flopped onto the floor, fresh blood from the wounds splashing Garthrust’s legs.

“Ha-ha!” I exclaimed. “Got you dirty.”

“Shut up!” Garthrust roared, shaking me by the neck.

I fought against the black encroaching in my vision and focused on the dancing starfish cartoon on Garthrust’s console.

“Break something user, break something! Hurry! The suit is running out of charge fast and won’t be able to replace anymore of your internal fluids unless you break something! Break something, user, break something!”

I wanted to, in that moment, but held back. The gauntlets were still there, hidden beneath my skin, and my hands were free, but I held back. Instead, I sang “we’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Dearth.”

“Shut up!” Garthrust roared again, his voice breaking into a squeal at the end. He dragged my limp body into the elevator with him, holding me by the back of the neck in his power glove.

“I don’t know how!” I snapped back, before coughing up a mouthful of blood onto the nice clean elevator floor.

I strained my neck to look around. From the waist down, the elevator was pure luxury. Veins of silver run through marble made up the walls, with a mirror sheen that let me see the rest. The buttons were all burnished ivory, with hand painted symbols on each. We were going up, to the top floor.

When the doors slid open, the room Garthrust dragged me into was something out of corporate wet dreams. Leather covered every seat, and gentle foliage adorned the sleek, dark, wood-paneled walls. A room length window brought in gentle evening moonlight and showed the sprawling city below.

At the far end of a lengthy block of obsidian in use as a board room conference table, sat the Wizard. He was human, old, and wore a long white beard under spectacles. The pajama robe he wore had dramatically flared cuffs, but otherwise came across as classic business chic. Onyx black with dull silver pinstripes. Even his fuzzy slippers had silver tipped pompoms.

He stood with the aid of an ornate cane, leaning to look at me as Garthrust dragged my limp form into the room. The cane’s head appeared to be etched crystal of some sort, and twisting dark wood composed the shaft.

At his side was Rova, her mordren bodyguard Breach, and someone new. An elf, wearing a rifle and two long-barreled handguns. Her spiked ears gave away her elfin nature, but she looked nothing like the delves in my basement.

The pale, sallow elf wore forest green leather pants and a matching long sleeved top. It was form-fitting, and accommodated armored plating, as well as holsters and hanging ammunition for her weapons. The Wizard may have been interested in me, but the elf was watching me for any threat. Her gaze was clinical, trained.

She also clearly wore an active shield, the gem glowing at her neckline.

I hung limply, holding a hand over my wounded belly to hold in my guts. Garthrust tossed me onto the obsidian slab, and I rolled gracelessly off it onto the floor, with a clatter of expensive office chairs.

“That wasn’t my fault, my legs don’t work,” I groaned from the floor.

“Oh Garthrust, you make such a mess again,” the Wizard said. “So much blood.”

Rova hissed at the orc with the metal fist. Her tail rose over her shoulder. “Idiot. Leave the human, bring me your console results,” she spat at him.

“Speak to the church with more respect, serpent,” he shot back, stomping toward the platform.

“You are not the church, Garthrust,” the Wizard croaked. He was still peering at me and spoke distractedly. “I have known the church for longer than you have drawn breath. You’re just the most recent priest working for Dearth. Just like any of my other tools, I can have you replaced.”

I groaned and rolled my chest to better compress my gut wound. My hands were starting to lose some sensation and I couldn’t trust them to keep my midsection from bleeding any longer.

“He appears to be dying now, I thought the relic made him impossible to kill,” the Wizard said.

“It appears to have a charging system, and we’ve exhausted it,” Rova informed him.

“How does it recharge?” he asked.

“Unknown at the moment,” Rova said. “If he could charge it, he would, look at him.”

“Yeah, look at me, rolling around in my own guts.” I flopped again, getting my upper half pointed in the direction I needed to crawl. “Aren’t you guys proud?”

“Flippant creature, isn’t he? No chance of recruitment, I suppose?” the Wizard asked.

“This is the human that has been defying our expansion, sir,” the elf leaned in and whispered.

“Oh, that deviant? I hear he’s mated with a conda,” the Wizard said. “Fascinating, I should like to interview him.”

“You guys made that up about me!” I grunted. I shrugged from my blood-slick on the floor. “I totally am now, though. It was a great idea too, you should try it some time.” The encroaching darkness was fighting me to come back again, and the cartoon starfish was furiously flossing on the obsidian slab, insisting that I break anything at all. I ignored it.

“Shut your mouth!” Garthrust roared. He slammed his fist down on the obsidian slab and sprayed spittle at me over the conference table.

A web of small cracks emitted from the metal fist’s blow, and the Wizard squealed indignantly. “Garthust!” he whined. “You’re such a slob, stop breaking things.”

The elf at the Wizard’s side clenched, glaring at me. It was like she knew what I was about to do. When I rose up on one fist, she drew one of her sidearms.

“Yeah, Valued Garthrust,” I said, flopping down onto the marble tiled floor with a gristly splash. I activated my BuyMort tab with my eyes and approved the mercenary contract Phyllis had set up for me. Funds deducted, and the message “pod dispatched” flashed across my vision.

“Quit breaking stuff, you silly slob.” I finished my statement with a faint, but high-pitched giggle.

The orc finally snapped. He roared and raised both fists over his head. Spittle flew from his lips, and he stomped toward me. The elf looked away, drawn to his display.

I took that instant to summon my gauntlets and slam my fist into the window.